Did you happen to watch Super Bowl LI? Did you stick around for halftime? Lady Gaga put on a great show, jumping off the stadium roof, dancing, changing costumes... all while singing live in front of millions. She trained for months to be able to put on this 15 minute non-stop spectacle. And then on Monday, the stories about her body started coming in...
She was called fat, flabby, chubby; one website said "look at that gut!" People posted mean-spirited pictures online poking fun at her. I didn't see anything wrong with the way she looked at all at the Super Bowl! She was healthy and very fit, and looked fantastic. The night of the game I was at a party, and I heard several people saying she looked “fat” and, being in the weight loss field, I was blown away. I had no comment. Even a friend's 11 year old daughter chimed in with the shaming.
I have personally dealt with both ends of the spectrum. When I weighed more, I got poked fun at for being overweight. Then, I lost it all and got very fit, healthy and active. When I finally got down to my goal weight, I was told by several close people in my life, and even some of my own clients, that I was getting "too skinny." Really? Too skinny? They asked if I was sick, and told me I had better be careful with the dieting. Seriously? I began to feel self conscious that I was indeed getting too thin. I was becoming offended that people were saying these things to my face.
I thought about it, and finally realized I never wanted to lose weight or get on the ITG Diet Plan for anyone else but myself. I knew what my goals were, and I reached them. I was looking good, feeling great, and got to buy an entire new wardrobe. I began to do so many healthy activities I hadn't done in a few years, and my entire lifestyle changed for the better. I proved to myself that I could do this and stick to a plan, and get some results that I had never had with any weight loss or exercise plan before.
People are free to say anything they want, and think anything they want, but the shaming needs to stop. It is a little unexplainable to me that most of the time, people who are overweight are shaming thinner people, and thinner people are still shaming overweight people. I guess it will never make sense to me, so I just need to make sure I walk the walk and talk the talk, especially since I am, after all, living the ITG lifestyle in Step 3, Success For Life.
Lady Gaga responded best when she posted a comment to all of the body-shamers: "I'm proud of my body and you should be proud of yours too. No matter who you are or what you do...you don't need to cater to anyone or anything to succeed. Be you, and be relentlessly you."
Well said.
